So I set up my new Crucial M4 last night, installed Windows 8.1 on it, configured everything, and when i get to the first "real" bootup (IE no more "setting things up for you..." bootup stages)...

Well... first a bit of background: on my computer, right after you turn it on, the CPU fan spins to 100% for the first 2 or 3 seconds, and then once the BIOS loads, it slows down to a more reasonable speed. Also, I have SpeedFan installed and set to run automatically on startup, and when SpeedFan starts up, it too sets the CPU fan to 100% at first, before letting it slow down.

So when I turned on my PC, I saw the Windows splash screen, so I went to do something else. 10 seconds later, I hear the CPU fan spin to 100%, and I think "oh no, there's something wrong with my SSD, and my PC just rebooted in mid-boot".

But it was SpeedFan. I never actually thought it would boot that fast. Hell, I only have a SATA II motherboard, so this drive isn't even running at its full potential.

Also, I'm sure you've seen videos like this a thousand times before, but I just find it so cool that I can do this:

The first time i rebooted after having installed my sdd it booted so fast it did not display the blue windows logo. I though "this can't be real, it must be the win 8 hybrid boot", So i unplugged the power chord and i retried, and got the same result

Yes, myself. I have disabled it with no start slow down. Prior to disabling hibernation the start up time was approximately 12 seconds, and after disabling it was still 12 seconds.

I think that's because with an SSD, we really can't notice the difference hibernating the kernel makes. I too see no difference between fast boot enabled and disabled. Actually, since all you need to do to disable fast boot is to reboot instead of shut down, that would be an easier way of comparing than disabling.

Also, does anyone know the event viewer code to check and see if fast boot is working?